{Writing Prompt} In My Next Life ...

... I want to be the middle child, with an older brother and a younger sister. We'll be close in age; only 36 months difference between the three of us.

Throughout the years we frequently go to the same school, ride the same bus, stick up for each other and tattle on each other in equal measure.

In middle school my brother Chip fends off the bullies on the bus that pick on me. In high school, after he's crowned Homecoming King, his girlfriend Debbie sneaks with me into my first R rated movie. Afterwards Debbie tells me about the mechanics of sex and doesn't laugh when I ask questions that show just how clueless I am.

Chip's best friend's brother Tom takes me to Prom. I wear a ruffled, lacy, teal concoction that I got on clearance at the local department store. I'm proud of it, even if it's a little too big in the chest. Fortunately the stays keep it up and I improvise with a little artificial cleavage. Chip doesn't like Tom. But I do. A lot. In my diary I practice writing Mr and Mrs Tom Wakefield. Over and over. I catch my little sister Sophie reading my journal.

Sophie idolizes me for the first fourteen years of her life - until she starts her period and starts liking boys. Liking boys that I do not like one bit. Then Chip and I reunite to commiserate on our little sister's poor judgement and worry that she may be branded a slut at school.

Timing the Trailers

At the movie theatre my dad checked his waist watch multiple times to calculate the length of the trailers. He kept flipping it up to try to read it in the dark when the screen was brightest.

Ten minutes, he whispered.

Would've been my guess. Now I know.

Candy Cane Joe-Joe's

are my own personal crack.

Love them!

Maybe even more than Thin Mints.

Definitely more.